JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the G20 summit in Indonesia last week, an Indonesian government official said Thursday, avoiding conflict with the United States and its allies over its war in Ukraine.
Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, head of support for the G-20 summit, said Putin’s decision not to attend was “best for all of us.”
US President Joe Biden, Chinese President Xi Jinping and other world leaders will attend the two-day summit starting on November 15. The summit will be the first time they have been together. Biden and Putin at a conference since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Indonesian President Joko Widodo is hosting the event on the island of Bali.
“It has been informed that the President of Russia Vladimir Putin will not attend the G20 summit, and will be represented by a major official, and this has been discussed by President Joko Widodo and Putin in previous telephone conversations,” he said. Pandjaitan spoke after the meeting. security officials in Denpasar, the capital of Bali.
“Regardless of Russia’s decision, it is good for all of us and good for all of us,” said Pandjaitan, who is also the coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment. He previously said that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will lead the Russian delegation.
Pandjaitan did not know why Putin decided not to come but said “maybe it’s because President Putin is busy at home, and we have to respect that.” Pandjaitan confirmed the same reasons that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will remain at home.
Widodo earlier this year traveled to Kyiv and Moscow in an effort to get the two leaders to sit in Bali to make peace.
Putin’s decision not to attend the G-20 comes as Russia’s military has been in trouble in Ukraine. The Russian military said it would withdraw from Kherson, the only Ukrainian regional capital it has captured and the route to the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula.
Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson and the intensity of the winter fighting will give the two countries an opportunity to negotiate peace, according to Army Major Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs. of Staff, said Wednesday.
He said 40,000 Ukrainian civilians and 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the war, now in its ninth month. “The same may be true on the Ukrainian side,” Milley added.
The G-20 is the largest of the three summits taking place in Southeast Asia this week and next, and it was unclear whether Lavrov would represent Russia as a whole. Association of Southeast Asian Nations which began Thursday in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, followed by the G-20 and the Asia-Pacific summit in Bangkok, Thailand.
Biden will attend ASEAN and the G-20 while Vice President Kamala Harris will attend APEC. Biden is expected to meet with Xi in Bali.
Biden ruled out a meeting with Putin if he attended the event, saying the only thing he could discuss with the Russian leader was to discuss a deal to release imprisoned Americans to Russia..
Officials in Biden’s office said they would have worked with international partners to isolate Putin if he had decided to join himself. They have discussed the election and other protest demonstrations.
